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Saturday, 22 March 2014

Structuring Your Story by Adam Wallace #ChaBooCha

There are tens, possibly hundreds, maybe
even millions of articles and books and lectures about story structure. This
article is totally my own preference, so you are welcome to either take it on
board or make it walk the plank (take note ... making it walk the plank would be
a negative plot point).

I used to be an engineer. I like structure.
I like maths. And that is why Kurt Vonnegut is one of my heroes.

I love that. I love being able to see the
shape of a story in terms of good and bad things happening to the main
character. And what happens to the main character generally shapes the graph
for other characters too, because the support characters are there to drive the
main character’s journey, and bring out their personality traits.

One technique I have found extremely useful
when working on the structure of a story is to actually break it down into
little micro-structures. After I have written the story, or sometimes as I am
going through, I write a scene breakdown. So for every scene I write down What happens, Why it happens (with regard to the story or the character), and whether
it’s a positive or negativeScene for the character involved.

The two important things for me are the why and the positive/negative angleof
the scene. If I can’t think of a good Why
for a scene, if it doesn’t add something to the story or lead into something
later on, it either needs to be changed or cut.

The positive/negative
thing is really important too. You need to have shape to your story. If you
have too much of the same thing, either positive or negative, the story becomes
routine. It flatlines. There are no surprises. Even a movie like Rocky, where
the graph spends most of the movie below the centre line, there are little
spikes up and down throughout, leading to the massive jump at the end.

Most of you will probably know of The
Hero’s Journey, a theory written by Joseph Campbell. I found it an incredibly
hard book to read, but there are some great summaries online. Even if you don’t
use all the points, you can still get a nice shape.

This is a very simplified version (there
are actually 12 points).

The main character is introduced to the audience

An event takes the character out of their comfort zone and into
another ‘world’, with new rules and conditions they aren’t used to. This can be
a positive or negative event.

Things get worse for the main character

A mentor helps main character see the light and start turning things
around

The main things I took from it were the
call to adventure (taking the main character out of their comfort zone); the
mentor, someone who helps them along their journey (yes, I have watched a LOT
of karate movies!); and I love the fact that the moment before the great
victory is the lowest point, the moment where it seems like all hope is lost,
but also a moment that strengthens the main character’s resolve.

A good low makes the high seem higher.

In the end, to me, it is all about
character. It is your character’s journey, the situations they face, how they
respond and grow, that will determine the structure of the story. Give them
highs and lows, mix it up, and never allow them to get comfortable. If you do
get stuck, if your story feels as though it is losing structure, think about
what your main character would least like to happen, and make
that happen!

As Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon say
in their book Writing Movies for Fun and Profit (a fantastic book, by
the way), every studio movie has the same three act structure. I believe it is
also a great structure you can follow for chapter books as well.

Act
1: You get a likeable guy stuck up a tree (take
him/her out of their comfort zone).

Act
2: You throw rocks at him (put them in situations
they don’t want to be in and see how they react – have some wins, some losses).

Act
3: You get him down out of the tree (they win
yaaaaaaay!).

Within these acts, the story graph has ups
and downs, but this is a simple idea that is easy to follow and fun to write.
Create your character. Make things difficult for them, but with the odd glimmer
of hope, and then, when everything seems lost, when winning seems impossible, get
him down out of the tree and finish on a high!

Now go and write!

****

A qualified Engineer and Primary School Teacher, Adam Wallace settled onwriting books for children as his career of choice. With 20 published, including Better Out Than In and the How to Draw series, Adam is fast becoming a well-known name in the world of children’s books. You can find Adam's books at Adam Wallace Books and his Facebook author page here.

Thank you sharing your advice on story structure and one's main character. I do something similar to “breaking it down into little micro-structures.” After each chapter I write a paragraph about that chapter and once I’m finished I have a complete breakdown of the story, chapter by chapter, which can then be fine-tuned into a synopsis.

Oy! this is really helpful advice. I jumped into this challenge without knowing what I was doing. I've never written fiction longer than about a thousand words. The plots for younger readers don't have as many ups and downs. Thank-you so much. (And great giveaway. I'm working through a non-fic PB on Nancy's blog now.)

Thanks for the great summary of the hero's journey. It's a great reminder as I'm writing my book. I love your idea of noting the positives/negatives and keeping a balance, it's not something I had considered before.

Great and Entertaining post Adam! Thank you for sharing! I love Kurt Vonnegut and his way of thinking. I like how you simplified the writing process. Sometimes we tend to be to wordy, stressing a point, making sure the reader understands what we are trying to say...over doing it at times! Also, what happens and why it happens is a great way of seeing if you did over do it. Thanks again, will use this as a reference!

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